Home as Found, James Fenimore Cooper [bookreader txt] 📗

fact that the cards were nearly as

distinctly marked on their backs, as on their faces. These cards he

showed secretly to his companion, and when the attention of Mrs.

Abbott was altogether engaged in expecting the terrible announcement

of her daughter's errors, the captain slipped them, kings, queens and

knaves, high, low, jack and the game, without regard to rank, into

the lady's work-basket. As soon as this feat was successfully

performed, a sign was given to the commodore that the conspiracy was

effected, and that disputant in theology gradually began to give

ground, while he continued to maintain that jumping the rope was a

sin, though it might be one of a nominal class. There is little

doubt, had he possessed a smattering of phrases, a greater command of

biblical learning, and more zeal, that the fisherman might have

established a new shade of the Christian faith; for, while mankind

still persevere in disregarding the plainest mandates of God, as

respects humility, the charities, and obedience, nothing seems to

afford them more delight than to add to the catalogue of the offences

against his divine supremacy. It was perhaps lucky for the commodore,

who was capital at casting a pickerel line, but who usually settled

his polemics with the fist, when hard pushed, that Captain Truck

found leisure to come to the rescue.

 

"I'm amazed, ma'am," said the honest packet-master, "that a woman of

your sanctity should deny that jumping the rope is a sin, for I hold

that point to have been settled by all our people, these fifty years.

You will admit that the rope cannot be well-jumped without levity."

 

"Levity, Captain Truck! I hope you do not insinuate that a daughter

of mine discovers levity?"

 

"Certainly, ma'am; she is called the best rope jumper in the village,

I hear; and levity, or lightness of carriage, is the great requisite

for skill in the art. Then there are 'vain repetitions' in doing the

same thing over and over so often, and 'vain repetitions' are

forbidden even in our prayers. I can call both father and mother to

testify to that fact."

 

"Well, this is news to me! I must speak to the minister about it."

 

"Of the two, the skipping-rope is rather more sinful than dancing,

for the music makes the latter easy; whereas, one has to force the

spirit to enter into the other. Commodore, our hour has come, and we

must make sail. May I ask the favour, Mrs. Abbott, of a bit of thread

to fasten this hook afresh?"

 

The widow-bewitched turned to her basket, and raising a piece of

calico, to look for the thread "high, low, jack and the game," stared

her in the face. When she bent her eyes towards her guests, she

perceived all three gazing at the cards, with as much apparent

surprise and curiosity, as if two of them knew nothing of their

history.

 

"Awful!" exclaimed Mrs. Abbott, shaking both hands,--"awful--awful--

awful! The powers of darkness have been at work here!"

 

"They seem to have been pretty much occupied, too," observed the

captain, "for a better thumbed pack I never yet found in the

forecastle of a ship."

 

"Awful--awful--awful!--This is equal to the forty days in the

wilderness, Mr. Dodge."

 

"It is a trying cross, ma'am."

 

"To my notion, now," said the captain, "those cards are not worse

than the skipping-rope, though I allow that they might have been

cleaner."

 

But Mrs. Abbott was not disposed to view the matter so lightly. She

saw the hand of the devil in the affair, and fancied it was a new

trial offered to her widowed condition.

 

"Are these actually cards!" she cried, like one who distrusted the

evidence of her senses.

 

"Just so, ma'am," kindly answered the commodore; "This is the ace of

spades, a famous fellow to hold when you have the lead; and this is

the Jack, which counts one, you know, when spades are trumps. I never

saw a more thorough-working pack in my life."

 

"Or a more thoroughly worked pack," added the captain, in a condoling

manner. "Well, we are not all perfect, and I hope Mrs. Abbott will

cheer up and look at this matter in a gayer point of view. For myself

I hold that a skipping-rope is worse than the Jack of spades, Sundays

or week days. Commodore, we shall see no pickerel to-day, unless we

tear ourselves from this good company."

 

Here the two wags took their leave, and retreated to the skiff; the

captain, who foresaw an occasion to use them, considerately offering

to relieve Mrs. Abbott from the presence of the odious cards,

intimating that he would conscientiously see them fairly sunk in the

deepest part of the lake.

 

When the two worthies were at a reasonable distance from the shore,

the commodore suddenly ceased rowing, made a flourish with his hand,

and incontinently began to laugh, as if his mirth had suddenly broken

through all restraint. Captain Truck, who had been lighting a cigar,

commenced smoking, and, seldom indulging in boisterous merriment, he

responded with his eyes, shaking his head from time to time, with

great satisfaction, as thoughts more ludicrous than common came over

his imagination.

 

"Harkee, commodore," he said, blowing the smoke upward, and watching

it with his eye until it floated away in a little cloud, "neither of

us is a chicken. You have studied life on the fresh water, and I have

studied life on the salt. I do not say which produces the best

scholars, but I know that both make better Christians than the jack-

screw system."

 

"Just so. I tell them in the village that little is gained in the end

by following the blind; that is my doctrine, sir."

 

"And a very good doctrine it would prove, I make no doubt, were you

to enter into it a little more fully--"

 

"Well, sir, I can explain--"

 

"Not another syllable is necessary. I know what you mean as well as

if I said it myself, and, moreover, short sermons are always the

best. You mean that a pilot ought to know where he is steering, which

is perfectly sound doctrine. My own experience tells me, that if you

press a sturgeon's nose with your foot, it will spring up as soon as

it is loosened. Now the jack-screw will heave a great strain, no

doubt; but the moment it is let up, down comes all that rests on it,

again. This Mr. Dodge, I suppose you know, has been a passenger with

me once or twice?"

 

"I have heard as much--they say he was tigerish in the fight with the

niggers--quite an out-and-outer."

 

"Ay, I hear he tells some such story himself; but harkee, commodore,

I wish to do justice to all men, and I find there is very little of

it inland, hereaway. The hero of that day is about to marry your

beautiful Miss Effingham; other men did their duty too, as, for

instance, was the case with Mr. John Effingham; but Paul Blunt-Powis-

Effingham finished the job. As for Mr. Steadfast Dodge, sir, I say

nothing, unless it be to add that he was nowhere near _me_ in

that transaction; and if any man felt like an alligator in Lent, on

that occasion, it was your humble servant."

 

"Which means that he was not nigh the enemy, I'll swear before a

magistrate."

 

"And no fear of perjury. Any one who saw Mr. John Effingham and Mr.

Powis on that day, might have sworn that they were father and son,

and any one who _did not see_ Mr. Dodge might have said at once,

that he did not belong to their family. That is all, sir; I never

disparage a passenger, and, therefore, shall say no more than merely

to add, that Mr. Dodge is no warrior."

 

"They say he has experienced religion, lately, as they call it."

 

"It is high time, sir, for he had experienced sin quite long enough,

according to my notion. I hear that the man goes up and down the

country disparaging those whose shoe-ties he is unworthy to unloose,

and that he has published some letters in his journal, that are as

false as his heart; but let him beware, lest the world should see,

some rainy day, an extract from a certain log-book belonging to a

ship called the Montauk. I am rejoiced at this marriage after all,

commodore, or marriages rather, for I understand that Mr. Paul

Effingham and Sir George Templemore intend to make a double bowline

of it to-morrow morning. All is arranged, and as soon as my eyes have

witnessed that blessed sight, I shall trip for New-York again."

 

"It is clearly made out then, that the young gentleman is Mr. John

Effingham's son?"

 

"As clear as the north-star in a bright night. The fellow who spoke

to me at the Fun of Fire has put us in a way to remove the last

doubt, if there were any doubt. Mr. Effingham himself, who is so

cool-headed and cautious, says there is now sufficient proof to make

it good in any court in America, That point may be set down as

settled, and, for my part, I rejoice it is so, since Mr. John

Effingham has so long passed for an old bachelor, that it is a credit

to the corps to find one of them the father of so noble a son."

 

Here the commodore dropped his anchor, and the two friends began to

fish. For an hour neither talked much, but having obtained the

necessary stock of perch, they landed at the favourite spring, and

prepared a fry. While seated on the grass, alternating be tween the

potations of punch, and the mastication of fish, these worthies again

renewed the dialogue in their usual discursive, philosophical, and

sentimental manner.

 

"We are citizens of a surprisingly great country, commodore,"

commenced Mr. Truck, after one of his heaviest draughts; "every body

says it, from Maine to Florida, and what every body says must be

true."

 

"Just so, sir. I sometimes wonder how so great a country ever came to

produce so little a man as myself."

 

"A good cow may have a bad calf, and that explains the matter. Have

you many as virtuous and pious women in this part of the world, as

Mrs. Abbott?"

 

"The hills and valleys are filled with them. You mean persons who

have got so much religion that they have no room for any thing else?"

 

"I shall mourn to my dying day, that you were not brought up to the

sea! If you discover so much of the right material on fresh-water,

what would you have been on salt? The people who suck in nutriment

from a brain and a conscience like those of Mr. Dodge, too,

commodore, must get, in time, to be surprisingly clear-sighted."

 

"Just so; his readers soon overreach themselves. But it's of no great

consequence, sir; the people of this part of the world keep nothing

long enough to do much good, or much harm."

 

"Fond of change, ha?"

 

"Like unlucky fishermen, always ready to shift the ground. I don't

believe, sir, that in all this region you can find a dozen graves of

sons, that lie near their fathers. Every body seems to have a mortal

aversion to stability,"

 

"It is hard to love such a country, commodore!"

 

"Sir, I never try to love it. God has given me a pretty sheet of

water, that suits my fancy and wants, a beautiful sky, fine green

mountains, and I am satisfied. One may love God, in such a temple,

though he love nothing else."

 

"Well, I suppose if you love nothing, nothing loves you, and no

injustice is done."

 

"Just, so, sir. Self has got to be the idol, though in the general

scramble a man is sometimes puzzled to know whether he is himself, or

one of the neighbours."

 

"I wish I knew your political sentiments, commodore; you have been

communicative on all subjects but that, and I have taken up the

notion that you are a true philosopher."

 

"I hold myself to be but a babe in swaddling-clothes compared to

yourself, sir; but such as my poor opinions are, you are welcome to

them. In the first place, then, sir, I have lived long enough on this

water to know that every man is a lover of liberty in his own person,

and that he has a secret distaste for it in the persons of other

people. Then, sir, I have got to understand that patriotism means

bread and cheese, and that opposition is every man for himself."

 

"If the truth were known, I believe, commodore, you have buoyed out

the channel!"

 

"Just so. After being pulled about by the salt of the land, and using

my freeman's privileges at their command, until I got tired of so

much liberty, sir, I have resigned, and retired to private life,

doing most of my own thinking out here on the Otsego-Water, like a

poor slave as I am."

 

"You ought to be chosen the next President!"

 

"I owe my present emancipation, sir, to the sogdollager. I first

began to reason about